Radiohead Learn Not To Do That Again?

Maybe we all got a little too excited by the success of it all… when Radiohead launched their album In Rainbows with a pay-what-you-want online promotion and album length video on Current TV, they were heralded as music-industry saviors – guys who got the web and the changing attitude towards content. An interview with Thom Yorke in the Hollywood Reporter may suggest that the band may not be the crusaders we were all hoping for as they won’t repeat the pay-what-you-want promotion again. The THR says:

“I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation,” Yorke said of the band’s downloading policy for the album “In Rainbows.”

“It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do,” he said. “I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time.”

Radiohead’s decision to allow fans to pay into the online equivalent of an honesty box for the album came shortly after the band walked away from troubled record label EMI, sparking a slew of comment about the future direction of the music industry and the dwindling revenue pot from CD sales.